Equinox Realty to invest Rs 600 crore on housing project in Bangalore

NEW DELHI: Essar Group real estate company Equinox Realty will invest about Rs 600 crore on construction of its first housing project in Bangalore.

The company, which forayed into the realty sector in 2007, has appointed construction major L&T to build its housing project 'Water's Edge' spread over 8 acres of land.

"This will be our first residential project. We will develop about 400 flats in this project. The starting price in the initial phase would be Rs 1.5 crore onwards," Equinox Realty Chief Executive Officer Cherag Ramakrishnan told PTI.

"We have appointed L&T for construction of this project with a total built-up-area of about 2 million square feet," he said, adding that the project would be completed in the next four and half years.

Asked about the project cost, he said "it would be about Rs 550-600 crore excluding land price". The planned investment would be largely funded through internal accruals.

L&T's scope of work includes all shell & core and the finishing works. The project will have five 40-storeyed towers, which will be among the tallest buildings in the city.

Ramakrishnan said the company is targetting people who want to experience luxury lifestyle with all urban conveniences.

The sizes of the flats would be between 2,500 square feet and 3,800 square feet and the basic selling price has been fixed at Rs 5,660/square feet.

Apart from this project, he said the company is developing a 1.2 million square feet office complex in Mumbai. It is also developing many projects for other Essar Group companies which are used for captive purposes.

On expansion, Ramakrishnan said the company is looking for more projects in Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. "We have land in Mumbai and we are in active discussions to acquire land in Bangalore and Pune".